Overview
- Following a December 8 coordination meeting, the environment ministry on December 17 asked the Survey of India to delineate Aravalli areas using the Supreme Court‑accepted 100‑metre local‑relief test and tasked ICFRE with drafting an Aravalli‑wide Management Plan for Sustainable Mining.
- The Centre publicly directed Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat to stop granting new mining leases until the plan is finalised, with officials indicating limited exceptions for strategic and atomic minerals and possible renewals subject to clearances.
- Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav rejected claims that the redefinition weakens safeguards, asserting a total freeze on new leases and directing ICFRE to propose additional no‑go zones for mining.
- Former forest officials and policy analysts questioned the legal force of the lease freeze without binding orders and warned the elevation‑only criterion could exclude much of the contiguous ecosystem from protection.
- Pushback is escalating, with ex‑IFS officer R. P. Balwan’s plea seeking FSI‑based criteria listed for a January 7 Supreme Court hearing and Congress‑aligned groups staging protests and planning a multi‑state ‘Save Aravalli’ yatra in early January.